HOUSING

Housing is one of the basic needs that the entire population tries to satisfy, In most societies it is regarded as an elementary social needs. The physical characteristics of dwellings, particularly the construction materials and the access to basis services are important indicators of the living standards of households and their members. The characteristics of a society’s housing stock are a highly relevant indicator  of the level of socio-economic development.

According to Table 13.1, the great majority of the Mozambican population, both in urban and rural areas, live in individual dwellings (99.7%). Only 0.3% of the population lives in collective housing. The homeless are a negligible proportion, although, in absolute terms, they are 7,112 people.

Note: All the tables in this section exclude empty houses. There are 48,329 empty houses in Mozambique.

Table 13.2 shows that most of the individual dwellings in Mozambique are huts (85.8%), which is the traditional form of rural dwelling. About the same proportion of households and of individuals resident in the country live in this type of dwelling. Only  8.9% of dwellings are modern houses, and 1.2%  are apartments. In urban areas modern houses are more common than in the countryside (27.5% against 2.6%); but huts are also the dominant form of dwelling in urban areas (61.8%). This dominance of huts in urban areas suggests that these areas have some characteristics of rural areas. As was mentioned earlier, more than half  of the economically active population living in the country’s urban areas works in the agricultural sector. But, when looked at through other variables such as fertility, mortality and school attendance, the urban areas are clearly differentiated from the rural ones.

Table 13.3 shows the percentage distribution of dwellings, households and its members by form of property. According to these data, almost all households in Mozambique, in both urban and rural areas, live in their own dwellings (91.7%). The percentages are still higher in the rural  areas. In second place are households living in granted or rented dwellings. Only a small percentage live in dwelling under other property forms.

The results of Table 13.4 are consistent with those shown in Table 13.2. The building materials predominant in the walls, floors and roofs of Mozambican dwellings correspond to the materials generally used in building huts and informal dwellings. For example, 87.1% of dwellings have walls of mud and wattle, reed, etc. or of mud bricks, 68.0% have dirt floors, and  81.8% have roofs of grass/thatch/palm leaves. The use of better quality materials is more frequent in urban than rural areas, since in the former formal dwellings are more frequent, even if they are not dominant.